Botha’s Lark – SA’s most threatened terrestrial bird species likely to become extinct as early as 2025

Map of the Protected Environments that overlap with the distribution of Botha’s Lark in the greater Wakkerstroom area. BirdLife South Africa and the Endangered Wildlife Trust propose another Protected Environment to the east of Volksrust and north of Wakkerstroom, directly overlapping with the core distribution of Botha’s Lark. (Photo: BirdLife South Africa)

By Kristin Engel

4 Jul 2024

Without conservation action, the Botha’s Lark, South Africa’s most threatened terrestrial bird species, faces extinction as early as 2025. With an estimated 340 individuals left in the wild in South Africa, the species population has declined by 90% over the past decade.

The Botha’s Lark, a small brown bird with an orange-pink conical bill, endemic to South Africa and found in grasslands along the escarpment of southwestern Mpumalanga, is under serious threat of extinction.

The species is not sufficiently protected in nature reserves and grasslands are not adequately preserved as a vegetation type.

Dr Hanneline Smit-Robinson, head of conservation at BirdLife South Africa, told Daily Maverick, “If we look at the decline, unless there’s a serious intervention, the species could be extinct as early as 2025.”

The species, Spizocorys fringillaris, has a tiny and limited distribution in the grasslands of South Africa, of which 34% have been irreversibly transformed with less than 2% being formally protected, according to an article in the South African Journal of Science.

This somewhat nondescript bird used to be most present around the Wakkerstroom Highveld, with a small population historically located in the Daggakraal community region in southern Mpumalanga. However, bird guides from this area have noted its complete disappearance for two years now.

Dr David Ehlers Smith, science and spatial planning project manager at BirdLife South Africa, said this may not be the most charismatic of bird species or the easiest to identify, but the conservation of the Botha’s Lark is the most pressing issue facing South Africa’s terrestrial fauna.

Smit-Robinson said, “The potential extinction of the Botha’s Lark looms as an imminent possibility, marking a dire milestone for a South African bird species that occurs nowhere else on the planet. Urgent and focused action is imperative to address this crisis, with the time to act swiftly dwindling.”

The impending extinction of the Botha’s Lark was discovered only towards the end of 2023 and early 2024 when surveys and scientific analyses were done by Robin Colyn, former BirdLife South Africa staff member and a PhD student at the University of Cape Town.

Smit-Robinson said his work indicated the situation was worse than they could have imagined. The population was estimated at 20,000 individuals in 1983; in 2015 it had declined to under 2,500.

Now, in 2024, it has declined to 340 individuals, and advanced remote sensing analyses indicate a 29% reduction of suitable habitat within its already tiny, historic distribution.

The decline will trigger the uplisting of the Botha’s Lark to Critically Endangered based on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List assessment – one step away from extinction.

botha’s lark extinction Botha’s Lark showed a decline of 90% over the past decade. (Graph: BirdLife South Africa)

The survival of the Botha’s Lark was a prominent topic at the species extinction crisis pre-forum of the IUCN’s first Africa Conservation Forum in Nairobi last week, as members discussed improvements in the linkages between species’ recovery efforts and the broader conservation agenda in Africa.

Lack of political will

The Botha’s Lark faces a myriad of threats, but according to experts, one of the greatest is the lack of political or economic will to safeguard species, resulting in a dearth of funds to address and mitigate the threats.

The major threat facing the species is the fragmentation and loss of habitat. Smit-Robinson said the habitat area for the species was decreasing through an increase in monoculture and agricultural expansion for soy and maize in the area.

Additionally, a shift in grazing from sheep to cattle appears to be changing the grass conditions upon which the Botha’s Lark relies.

“Our assumption at the moment, about why there’s this change from sheep to cattle, is because there’ve been many incidents of stock theft in that area. But in addition, because of climate change, the crops are actually bringing in more money to the farmer – that’s why they’re changing from cattle grazing only. Historically, this was just grassland for grazing,” she said.

Smit-Robinson said they needed to work with landowners to protect the environment in areas where the species occurs, through habitat management plans.

There’s a large area of habitat already protected – the Sneeuwberg Protected Environment which overlaps with the distribution of the species and lies within a strategic water source area, feeding rivers that provide water for our cities. It is also rich in fauna and flora and falls within the grasslands’ Important Bird and Biodiversity Area.

botha’s lark distribution (Image: BirdLife South Africa)

From the initial discussions, BirdLife South Africa believes they can come up with a good working relationship with landowners and farmers to increase the protected environment for the species that overlaps with their land, and take into account economic benefits as well.

“The beauty of having a protected environment will also be the signing of an agreement with the landowners where there will be a habitat management plan and a bigger management plan for that protected environment, where we would be able to limit this kind of ploughing of grasses and planting of crops,” Smit-Robinson said.

She added that these threats not only affect the Botha’s Lark species but others in the ecosystem.

“All the work that we’ll be doing will actually focus on grassland conservation. There are more than 20 threatened bird species that will benefit from this intervention, in terms of having a more protected environment and influencing management regimes for the species.”

botha’s lark protected environment Image of the Protected Environments that overlap with the distribution of Botha’s Lark in the greater Wakkerstroom area. BirdLife South Africa and the Endangered Wildlife Trust propose another Protected Environment to the east of Volksrust and north of Wakkerstroom, directly overlapping with the core distribution of Botha’s Lark. (Photo: BirdLife South Africa)

Plan of action

In an interview with Daily Maverick, BirdLife South Africa set out their plan to arrest the alarming decline in the Botha’s Lark population.

In response to these threats, the Botha’s Lark specialist working group was started two years ago by BirdLife South Africa, the Endangered Wildlife Trust, the Universities of KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Cape Town and the Free State, as well as BirdLife International.

The group came together to find innovative and sustainable solutions for conserving the Botha’s Lark and its habitat, while engaging with affected landowners and communities throughout its range.

“We began the working group thinking that these threatened grassland species such as the Botha’s Lark, Rudd’s Lark and the Yellow-breasted Pipit really needed our attention. When we got the news of 340 individuals remaining, we realised that we had to jump into action immediately.

“There was no time to waste. It’s a bit of a difficult situation because we know, to some extent, what we need to do… we have to conserve the habitat for the species, but then there’s also a number of questions we still need to answer,” she said.

The first thing to do is conserve the habitat, which includes formal protective environments, engage with landowners, and do stakeholder engagement for having the right habitat management practices and grazing regimes.

Second is to do more research, monitoring and surveys to understand the threats; why there has been a change from sheep grazing to cattle grazing and to what extent that influences the species, and to what extent climate change is a threat to the species.

BirdLife South Africa has proposed a dedicated Birding EcoTours Fellow of Grassland Conservation project manager to engage with landowners throughout the historic distribution of the Botha’s Lark to identify survey regions; understand, support and champion sustainable land-use practices that allow for both economic and ecological viability, and promote awareness among affected parties.

Smit-Robinson said this project manager would hopefully be on the ground in September this year, engaging with landowners to maintain habitat management (grazing) regimes that benefit the Botha’s Lark’s ecology, and liaise with the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency and the Endangered Wildlife Trust to declare the Highveld a protected environment.

They will implement surveys across seasons and within localities and conduct camera-trap and AudioMoth surveys at artificial water bodies to confirm population estimates and document the species.

Smit-Robinson said camera-trap surveys at identified nesting sites will also quantify nest predation and sensitivity to disturbance. Finally, the coordination of conservation efforts and the drafting of a species action plan to measure and monitor their success.

“Every species has a critical role in the ecosystem. We may not fully understand which other species are very dependent and linked to the Botha’s Lark. If this is the situation for this species, it’s probably an indicator of ecosystem collapse,” Smit-Robinson said.

BirdLife South Africa is in the process of updating and revising the Red List for birds of South Africa, Eswatini and Lesotho. This is undertaken every 10 years using the IUCN Red List criteria, but on a regional level.

“We have a pretty good idea of what the decline is for all species that we’re working on, and the Botha’s Lark is by far leading the pack in population decline,” Smit-Robinson said.

There’s been no concerted effort for the conservation of the species until now, she said, except for the few protected environments declared, with habitat management plans that theoretically should benefit its conservation.

Smit-Robinson said they began an awareness project with the community and schools in Daggakraal in 2023, one of the direct sites where the species occurred two years ago – this used to be the most popular site to view the species.

“There’s not been a single species that’s gone extinct on the African mainland – we’ve had some island species, like the Dodo, that’s gone extinct in terms of a bird species. So this is really a cause for concern, and we take this very seriously.

“We will do our absolute best to turn the situation around. We hope that once we have more people on the ground doing analysis of what we’re facing, the situation will be less dire than we think.

“But for now, we have to realise that we cannot introduce any additional threats to the species — that’s avitourism, because when a species is so close to extinction, there’s suddenly more demand to view it.

“We are working on a code of conduct where we’re going to be asking birders to respect the species and to avoid its known sites,” Smit-Robinson said.

Dr Ehlers Smith said BirdLife South Africa needed help to secure the future of the Botha’s Lark and other threatened grassland species. DM

To learn more or if you would like to assist the project, visit this webpage.

Kristin Engel was sponsored by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to attend the IUCN Africa Conservation Forum in Nairobi from 24-28 June as a media delegate.

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Lack of political will

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